Easy Date Night Recipe: Classic Fettuccine Carbonara

Sometimes we just want to stay in for a date night and that means curating our own experience. If you’ve been dating for about two seconds then you are well aware of how daunting a date night in can be. We strive to bring recipes and experiences that lend themselves to low pressure date nights that foster communication and relaxation. With that, we are happy to announce that the Tonight’s Better Together team is growing! We have the distinct pleasure to announce the arrival of Chef Joseph Choi to our team. Chef Choi’s professional training and field experience will add much more depth and insight into Tonight’s Better Together’s recipe portfolio.

Before we get to the recipe, let’s look a little deeper into the man, the myth, the legend: Joseph Choi. He was born and raised in Spokane,WA and began his career in the food industry at the age of 16. He initially studied Biochemistry at Washington State University while continuing to work in a kitchen in Pullman, Washington. In late 2010, he made the decision to drastically change his career path in order to follow his true passions in the culinary world. Joseph then studied at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY and graduated with a degree in Culinary Arts and Culinary Science. He met Jeremy Hansen in 2012 and has joined Chef Hansen at the James Beard House as well as helping out with projects such as the Deng Chu pop-up restaurant during the Chinese Lantern Festival in Spokane. Joseph’s experience ranges from high volume, to catering, to fine dining and anything in between. His most notable experiences consist of cooking dinner for Thomas Keller and working alongside famed Japanese chef Yoshihiro Murata.

So now that you know a little more about Chef Choi, enjoy his classic fettuccine carbonara recipe that is easy to make and delicious as well.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon minced shallot

½ tablespoon minced garlic

¼ cup chopped bacon

1/8 cup white wine

¼ cup heavy cream

2 portions fettuccine

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon Unsalted Butter

2 tablespoon Parmesan cheese

Directions:

First, get a sauté pan hot and then add the oil, shallots and garlic. Be careful as the shallots and garlic can burn easily. If they do, start over; burnt garlic never tastes good.

Once the shallots and garlic have sweated and become translucent, add the chopped bacon. Saute all the ingredients on high heat for 2-3 minutes.

Once the bacon has crisped up and rendered some of its fat, pull the pan off the heat and deglaze with white wine. You want to take the pan off the heat so that you don’t create a fireball in your kitchen.

Finally, add the heavy cream and reduce it down until it resembles a thick sauce. This will be the sauce for your pasta dish. You can set it aside while you cook the fettuccine or while you prepare anything else.

Cook the pasta as per the directions on the box. Save about a cup of the pasta water before you drain it so that you can add it to your sauce if it gets too thick.

Once the noodles are cooked, bring the sauce back up to a simmer and then add the noodles and gently mixed everything together so that the noodles are coated. This is where you can add a little pasta water to loosen up the noodles and the sauce. You want the pasta with the sauce to be loose but not like a soup with noodles.

To finish, turn off the heat and add the egg yolks, butter, and parmesan and toss/mix until the noodles are evenly coated. The butter and cheese help tighten up the sauce and the egg yolk will bring an extra creaminess to the dish.

There you have it. A date night recipe designed to be fun and simple, helping you spend more time dating and less time cooking.

Did you try this recipe? We’d love to hear about your experience with this recipe and others you might like to see in the future. Also, if you have any questions about the recipe, ask Chef Choi below!